Natural renewal

Marker 3These spaces, which used to be farmland, naturally favour beech trees, but have been planted with pine and spruce. Young seedlings find it difficult to develop beneath these even-aged plantations because there is insufficient light on the ground. Light must be allowed to penetrate between trees to ensure that the forest is renewed. Natural processes help with this, and sometimes humans take over. If a forest is left to evolve naturally, trees age and die. Their death creates open spaces that are slowly colonised by shrubs, then small trees, then trees. A forest takes several decades to resettle an area, during which time a variety of plant and animal species follow one another.